Emotions ran high in the room on Sunday night at the 2011 Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards.

The Rotunda’s dining hall was transformed into a magical Marie Antoinette wonderland with tall candelabras encrusted with open bloom roses, peonies, shiny birds and shining cutlery.

And the food was glorious. Thank you so much to all the chefs who cooked: Peter Tempelhoff from The Greenhouse, Hideki Maeda from Nobu, Giorgio Nava from Caffe Milano for the delicious bread, Luke Dale–Roberts from The Test Kitchen, Michael Broughton from Terroir and George Jardine from Jordan. The best chef’s table ever!

Also, congratulations to the 20 nominees, top 10 winners and the best of ones too, you all so deserve it, for showing astonishing talent, passion, dedication and constantly striving to improve culinary education. Not only for professionals, but for the general eating out public too, this is an inspiration.

You are creating an eating platform to which all chefs aspire, setting standards and lifting the restaurant industry in South Africa to new heights.

It certainly has been a challenging year, and as I said on Sunday, I have been full for 6 months now. I have never eaten at so many restaurants in my entire life! But I can’t wait to see what’s on the menu for 2012.

Abigail

PS. If you haven’t seen the full list of winners yet, click here.